Issue - meetings

Approval is being sought to start a consultation with council tax payers and local businesses on options for a new discretionary relief scheme for ‘revaluation support’.

The Leader considered the report seeking approval to start consultation with council tax payers and local businesses on options for a new discretionary relief scheme for ‘revaluation support’. The Leader noted that, subsequent to the publication of the report, the recommendation had been amended to provide for a longer period of consultation, and that a consultation period of 5 weeks was now proposed, to run from 12^th April until 17^th May 2017, with the aim to agree the final proposal at the meeting of the Cabinet in June.

The Leader noted that a longer 5 week period would allow more time for residents, businesses and the Greater London Authority to be able to respond to the consultation; the Council wished to ensure that the local business base and residents had every opportunity to shape proposals and to ensure that the Council designs a scheme which supports local businesses most effectively. The Leader further noted that other London boroughs were at the same time working up proposals for their own discretionary business rates relief schemes, and were expected to reach final decisions in June for their local areas. By extending the consultation period, the Council would have more time to consider what other boroughs were doing, and to coordinate if deemed necessary.

It was noted that the Council wished to ensure that the extra funding for discretionary relief is distributed to the local business base as quickly as possible. By continuing to initiate the consultation early in April, this will help ensure that a final decision on the new scheme can be reached in June and the extra relief distributed to those eligible shortly thereafter.

RESOLVED

i)             That the Leader agree that the Council consult on its Discretionary Business rates Relief Policy for ‘Revaluation Support’ for a period of 5 weeks, from 12^th April to 17^th May 2017.

ii)            That the Leader agree that the consultation seek views from residents, businesses and the Greater London Authority (GLA) as precepting authority on the following proposals and options:

a)    Designing a discretionary relief scheme that distributes Haringey’s allocation of Government funding across local businesses facing an increase in their business rate bills as a direct result of the revaluation. The amount of relief given to an individual business eligible for the scheme would be proportional to the amount that a business’ bill has increased following the revaluation.

b)     The option to set aside a proportion of the Government’s funding to strategically target extra support at businesses facing severe and immediate hardship from the revaluation and who can demonstrate a sustainable longer term business plan.

c)    The option to give preference to small and medium sized firms and independents, over multinational and large national businesses with high turnovers on the grounds that the latter are financially more likely to be able to pay higher business rate bills than the former.

d)    The option to prioritise relief on public interest grounds.

REASONS FOR DECISION

Haringey Council will be expected to use  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4